Alla Aberson’s father had hoped the government would become less authoritarian in the years after Joseph Stalin’s death. When he realized that reforms were unlikely, he and many of his friends made plans to leave the country. As the doors slowly opened, some of them emigrated almost immediately. Aberson and her parents were not among them. She recalls some of the events that made leaving the country difficult if not impossible for her family and how she eventually took matters into her own hands.